


My First Christmas

by Towaneko



Category: Captain America - All Media Types, Iron Man - All Media Types, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Christmas, Christmas Cookies, Christmas Fluff, Christmas Tree, Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-22
Updated: 2015-12-24
Packaged: 2018-05-08 11:17:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,005
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5495213
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Towaneko/pseuds/Towaneko
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tony has never really had a real Christmas before. At least not in a traditional sense. </p><p>Now he has Bucky. Bucky remembers Christmas and he wants to share it with Tony.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Tree

**Author's Note:**

  * For [voxmyriad](https://archiveofourown.org/users/voxmyriad/gifts).



> My gift to [voxmyriad](http://archiveofourown.org/users/voxmyriad/profile) for the Winteriron Holiday Exchange. 
> 
> I went more for holiday traditions so I hope I didn't end up begin too domestic for you. 
> 
> There will be three chapters that will all be posted by Christmas Eve. Enjoy and happy holidays!

Despite what the public was made to believe Tony Stark was not a big fan of Christmas. Sure he put on a show each year when December rolled around. Before Afghanistan he would be at all the Christmas parties, surrounded by girls dressed in Santa outfits that left nothing to the imagination. Even after Afghanistan, when he was with Pepper, she would drag him out to all the different charity events hosted by people that just wanted to make it look like they cared for the holidays.

Christmas got a little better when the Avengers moved in. He actually had people that he wanted to celebrate the holiday with but even then he still felt left out. Everyone had some kind of special way of celebrating the holiday and Tony always felt he was intruding on something intimate. Sure most of them shared his past of horrible childhood Christmases but in adulthood they seemed to have found a way to celebrate that kept those memories at bay.

Tony had yet to find anything similar.

So he took what he could get. He participated in the Christmas Eve movie night. He exchanged gifts and helped with Christmas dinner, well he set the table, no one was adventurous enough to let him attempt to cook.

And later when the others would slowly disappear to celebrate the holiday away from the tower, he wouldn’t say a thing.

This year would mark the third Christmas he was spending with his fellow Avengers.

It would also mark the first Christmas he would be celebrating with his now boyfriend, Bucky Barnes.

He hoped that this would be the year he wouldn’t be left alone after Christmas dinner.

 

~~~

Hearing Bucky talk about picking out the perfect Christmas Tree was something to behold. His eyes lit up and he got all flustered as he argued with everyone about what defined the perfect tree.

“You have to first look for a tree that has the perfect shape and color. If it doesn’t have that you’re just wasting your time. Once you have found one with the right cone shape and just the right shade of pine green you have to check for the smaller details.” 

Eventually it was agreed that Steve and Bucky would be the ones to go get the tree as no one else wanted to deal with the argument that was bound to happen.

At first Tony was going to stay home, happy to let the two super soldiers tramp around the snow all by themselves.

That is till Bucky started whining about Tony not wanting to help him pick out the perfect tree.

“I don’t fancy walking around in the snow for hours just searching for a tree that is just going to shed all over my floor.” His eyes never left his pad, he just knew Bucky was trying to give him that puppy dog look he had mastered from Steve. If he looked up it would be the end of it and he would be tramping around in the snow before he even thought of saying ‘no’.

_“Tones.”_

He would not look up.

“Dollface,” 

Tony looked up, his face twisted in disbelief. “You did not just call me _dollface_.” 

‘I did. Consider it payback for ignoring me. I just want to pick out a tree with my best friend and my fella.” Bucky grinned, he knew his boyfriend wasn’t going to deny him after that. 

Tony was going to regret this. He just knew he was going to regret this. 

~~~

“Tony, sweetheart, time to get up.”

Tony buried himself further into his blankets. He must be dreaming, there was no way his loving boyfriend was trying to wake him up so early in the morning.

“Steve, is already waiting for us. I have coffee waiting in the kitchen.”

If this was a dream why was the coffee all the way in the kitchen? Curious, Tony opened his eyes to see Bucky sitting on the edge of the bed dressed in one of those large poofy jackets meant for snow.

“W’ere you goin’?” Tony muttered into his blanket as he looked at the clock. 8:05, far too early to be awake. 

Bucky chuckled and moved the blanket away from Tony’s face. Kissing him on the cheek he tried to unravel his burrito of a boyfriend. “Where are _we_ going? Remember we’re going to go pick out a tree.”

Resigned to being awake, Tony slowly sat up to lean against Bucky. “When I agreed to come with you, I didn’t realize it would be at an ungodly time in the morning.”

“If we go later we won’t have first pick and I refuse to settle for anything less.” He gave Tony a kiss on the forehead, which Tony was not awake enough to enjoy, before leaving the room to let him get dressed.

Tony glanced at his pillow. If he wasn’t so smitten, he’d be getting a new boyfriend that wasn’t such a morning person. 

And he was right. He was regretting it.

~~~

It was cold. How was it so cold?!

He was dressed in the warmest jacket he owned along with matching gloves and scarf. Yet somehow he still found himself shivering as he followed the two super soldiers through the Christmas Tree Farm. Steve was carrying a small axe because apparently not only do they get to trek in the snow to find their tree, they also get the joy of chopping it down _themselves_.

Bucky was stopping at every potential tree. Evaluating it each one with a focused gaze that Tony usually only saw during missions. 

“What about this one?”

“Steve, that is clearly a pyramid not a cone.”

“Fine. This one?”

“Emerald not Pine Green.”

“Really, Bucky?” 

“I will not settle for less than perfect.”

Tony just listened, it was too early and he was too cold to even care what tree they brought home. He was sure he was ready to fall asleep standing up when a wool hat was shoved on to his head warming his frozen ears.

“I’m sorry we dragged you out so early.” Bucky said as he wrapped his arms around Tony pulling him close so he could place a warm kiss on his cheek. “ I just wanted to make sure we got the very best.” 

Tony cuddled closer to Bucky. It must have something to do with the super serum but Bucky was never cold.

“You know they have these plastic trees now. You don’t have to go walking around in the snow for hours looking for one and some of them even come decorated.” Tony thought about the displays they had set up around the company floors. “I think some of them even have that pine tree scent.”

Bucky sighed and placed his chin on Tony’s shoulder. “Back in the day, we always had a real tree around Christmas. The size would vary depending on what money we had but somehow every year we managed to have a real Christmas tree. it’s tradition.” 

Tony instantly felt guilty and touched at the same time. 

“I never really had a real Christmas before,” He ventured. “Maybe you can show me what yours was like.”

Bucky’s answering grin was bright enough to light up Avengers Tower. 

“We can start by picking the perfect tree.” He untangled himself from Tony taking him by the hand and dragging him to where Steve was pretending to look at trees, trying to give them a little privacy. 

It took two hours to find the perfect tree. 

A second after for Tony to pull Bucky into a make out session in his relief that they could finally head home. 

Two minutes into their make out session, Steve finished cutting down the tree. 

Five seconds after that the tree fell on them as Steve had miscalculated where it would land. 

Next year Tony was hiring someone to find their ‘perfect’ tree.


	2. This is Not How you Bake Cookies

Tony glared at Steve as Bucky finished cleaning the scratches that decorated the side of his face where the tree’s needles had scraped him.

“I can’t believe you dropped the tree on us.”

“I said I was sorry. It’s been awhile since I cut down a tree and I didn’t expect it to fall towards you. Bucky took the worst of it.”

Tony winced as Bucky disinfected the largest scratch. 

“My face would like to argue with you on that. What am I supposed to tell Pepper? ‘I’m sorry, Pep. I was supposed to stay out of trouble until the charity gala but Captain America attacked me with a Christmas Tree.’” 

“You’re being dramatic,” Bucky said. He had been listening to Tony yell at Steve since the incident and at this point, he knew Tony was just continuing on to guilt trip Steve. 

‘You get to tell Pepper!” Tony pointed at Bucky.”She’ll never believe me if I told her that Steve dropped a tree on me.” 

“As you wish.”

Silence.

“Who let you watch Princess Bride?!” 

~~~

After the disaster of picking out the tree Tony was glad that Bucky didn’t want to decorate the thing, content to leave the decorating to the rest of the team. That is until he found out what Bucky wanted to do instead.

“Baking? You know how to bake?” Tony looked at the ingredients laid out on the counter. It looked pretty basic but he learned not to take anything that involved the creation of something in the kitchen at face value.

“Not really. I just know how to make spritz cookies. Steve’s mom always insisted I helped her out because I always frustrated Steve when I try to help untangle the Christmas lights.” Bucky was wearing a green apron that said ‘Keep Calm and Bake’ and passed over a matching red one to Tony. “If you don’t want to bake you could always help with the tree.”

Tony snatched the apron from Bucky hurriedly putting it on. “No way am I going near that death trap. It tried to kill me once I won’t give it the chance to try again.”

Bucky passed over a bowl trying to hide his amusement. Wisely choosing not to respond and therefore encourage Tony’s ramblings about the tree,

It didn’t stop Tony from muttering about villainous trees. 

“Where is the mixer?” 

“How would I know? I’m usually banned from stepping foot in here when food creating is going on.” Tony said as he poked at the softened butter. 

“That’s because you get distracted or take apart all of the kitchen appliances.” Bucky said as he finally located the mixer and placed it on the counter, out of Tony’s reach. 

Tony looked accusingly at Bucky, his hands on his hips. “You don’t know that. I have never cooked around you before.”

“I’ve heard stories.”

“Who is spreading these lies and slander?”

“That would be Steve. Now measure out 3 cups of flour.”

“So not only does he drop a tree on me he is telling lies. I can cook when I want to.” He grabbed the container of flour and searched for the measuring cup. “Ask Pepper about my omelets.”

Bucky passed over the metal measuring cups. “You’re never going to let the tree thing die, are you? And I don’t know if you want to bring up the omelette. I’ve heard that story and it was not a positive look into your cooking skills.”

Tony scooped out some of the flour from the container. “I’ll have you know my omelets are amazing. Light and fluff-”

_Poof!_

Tony hadn’t been paying attention and had dumped the cup of flour into the bowl causing the a plume of the white ingredient to burst up from the bowl. The front of his apron and the bottom half of his face was now covered in the white flour. 

Bucky took one look before doubling over in laughter. 

Tony stood in shock before reaching his hand in the flour container and launching a handful of flour at Bucky’s head.   
The laughter stopped. Bucky’s eyes narrowed. 

Suddenly Tony was very unsure. 

Bucky reached over and dipped his hand into flour container.

This was war! 

It wasn’t long before clouds of white filled the kitchen. Eventually Bucky managed to gain control of the flour container, but Tony wasn’t one to give up. 

The fight escalated when Tony upgraded his choice of weapon to the egg carton. 

Both weapons had limited ammo and they both were on their last leg. That is until they spotted the softened butter. 

They had had reached a standoff. _Who would make the first move---_

Someone cleared their throat in the doorway and the couple turned to see Steve standing in the entrance to the kitchen. His shield, covered in flour and egg, held in front of him. 

“Banned from the kitchen again?”

“Clean up duty?” 

Steve just nodded. “I can’t believe you two. Leave you alone for ten minutes and the kitchen is a warzone.” 

Tony sighed, throwing the sponge into the sink. Finally they had finished cleaning. Flour was a pain to clean up. Now he really wanted Bucky’s cookies. 

Unfortunately they didn’t have enough ingredients left to actually make anything. 

Which made things all the more confusing when Bucky pulled out a clean bowl and some powdered sugar. 

“What are you doing?” 

“Making icing.” 

“Don’t we need cookies for that.” Tony stared in confusion as Bucky began mixing. “And unless I’m wrong spritz cookies don’t have icing.” 

“This isn’t for the cookies.”

Later Tony would blame it on the fact that they had just spent hours cleaning the kitchen that he didn’t catch on. 

“I don’t-.”

Bucky looked at him. 

_Oh._

“Let me help.” Tony picked up the sugar box. “How much do I add?”

If Tony added double the amount of sugar Bucky had instructed him to the icing bowl, he would claim it was because the box slipped. After all it wasn’t like Bucky was complaining.


	3. A Very Merry Christmas

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a note i went with the comic version of Bucky which only has one sister, Rebecca. That's it, Enjoy!

“So you’re telling me I can only spend $25 on each gift and $10 on whatever goes in their stocking?”

Bucky wanted to take a picture of Tony’s flabbergasted look. He was sure his billionaire boyfriend had never given a gift worth such a small amount of money.

“Yes, the entire team agreed that it would be interesting to try and put together gifts with a price limit. Plus I’m sure they are far more comfortable knowing that they won’t be receiving something that costs thousands of dollars.”

“Where was I for this conversation?”

“Hiding in your workshop,” Bucky with a small grin.

“You planned this!” Tony accused. “I can’t believe you all conspired against me!”

“Hey.” Bucky grabbed Tony’s hand rubbing his thumb across the palm in an attempt to calm Tony. “I know it’s hard for you to shop this way but, well, I’m sure the main reason why my parents did it was because of money.How limited we were, but each year we came up with an amount and that’s how much you were allowed to spend on gifts.”

Bucky paused needing a moment to collect himself.

“At first my sister and I hated the idea. It was hard enough trying to figure out what to get each other without a price limit. But eventually it became a game. Who could get the worst possible gag gift? What kind of idea did the other come up with this time? It made the gift that much better because we knew no matter what the other bought. A lot of thought had gone into it and that, that made all the difference.” 

Tony had to blink, _he was not crying_ , he had something in his eye. “I get it, I do.”

Bucky nodded reaching over to swipe a thumb under Tony’s eye. He stayed silent knowing there was more Tony wanted to say. 

 

“I’m not ignorant of the time you lived in. I don’t just buy expensive gifts. I just want to provide everyone with something beyond that.” Tony had never admitted any of this to anyone before. “Just because you lived through the Great Depression doesn’t mean you can’t live in a little luxury now. Let’s make a deal. I will try to buy gifts your way but in return I can gift you one thing that is above the limit.”

Tears were starting to well up in Bucky’s eyes and Tony was just ready to take it back when Bucky nodded.

“Deal. But you can only give me the gift when we are alone.”

“I can agree to that.”

Tony went and grabbed his jacket. “Now let’s go.”

“Go? Go where?” Bucky asked even though he was also already reaching for his jacket. 

“Shopping because of your new rule the gifts I bought are now all New Year’s gifts and I have nothing to give for Christmas” Tony paused a concerned look gracing his face. “Where do i even buy gifts for under $25?” 

Bucky just laughed taking Tony’s hand as they headed out the door. “You’re in for an adventure,  
котенок.”

~~~

Christmas morning arrived a lot faster than Tony was prepared for. He often heard people say that the Holidays had this ability to creep up on you and that the next moment it was the big day. Before he never believed it, but now he could understand where everyone came from. The last month has changed his view on Christmas. Bucky had helped change his view.

Turning he could see Bucky still asleep his arms curled around the pillow that Tony had slept on. The traditions Bucky had shared with Tony had made him feel as if he was part of a family. Not that the other Avengers weren’t his family. It’s just this moments were for him and Bucky.

And now Tony was ready to start his own tradition. He would give Bucky his first Christmas gift in bed. This was the gift he went over budget to buy. He looked at the velvet ring box sitting on his nightstand.

All Bucky had to do is say yes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope everyone has a wonderful Holiday!


End file.
